Should All Teachers Be Replaced by AI?

Interview with Vitaliy Goncharuk — Founder of AI.Business, May 23, 2024. Originally published by AeroDivan / ai.business.

Vitaly Goncharuk is an American entrepreneur (Washington DC) of Ukrainian origin (Odesa). In 2013, he founded the leading company in the field of autonomous navigation, Augmented Pixels. In 2022, the company was bought by the international company Qualcomm in a record-breaking exit for Eastern Europe. He also initiated and chaired the Committee for the Development of Artificial Intelligence in 2020–2022, which organizes the largest professional AI conference in Eastern Europe (EECVC).

Two approaches to ChatGPT in education

Vitaly Goncharuk: For me, there are two approaches to looking at the use of ChatGPT in the field of education.

First, as a tool that simply helps students with homework and answers their questions about learning — a secure approach where people get more access to information and actively use it, improving their knowledge.

On the other hand, there is a more revolutionary approach: combining ChatGPT with a 3D human-model generation tool. This could potentially replace 75%–85% of teachers and transform learning into an interaction between a student and an AI-powered teacher — replacing “suboptimal” teachers and eliminating variability in teaching styles.

Of course, there are many great teachers, but there is a significant staffing problem. This technology could reduce the workload on truly great teachers while transitioning those who teach formulaically into specific “facilitator” roles.

Most teachers quote and repeat information that is already written in their curricula: a share simply teach from the book, and a share facilitate students in a practical way. That’s why “book learning” can be replaced by communication between students and a 3D model with artificial intelligence.

During COVID-19, education moved online, separating students from teachers in physical space. In that scenario, replacing the teacher with a 3D model equipped with a vaster knowledge base wouldn’t significantly alter the student’s perception — but could make learning more engaging and productive.

Why «you can already replace all your teachers»

I studied in a class of 32 students. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask many questions because the teacher physically couldn’t handle them all — and some questions felt embarrassing to ask publicly. With a ChatGPT/3D model, students can ask as many questions as they like and receive fairly qualified answers. Access to knowledge is not constrained by a country’s curriculum or the teacher’s intellectual level: students gain access to a global knowledge base.

Won’t this create an «introverted» generation?

There is a share of teachers who teach excellently: they motivate and are passionate about their subject. It is possible to train AI models on such teachers and even reproduce them in 3D. However, teachers who demotivate and lack up-to-date knowledge should be replaced by technology. The education system should prioritize its customers — students. When I wrote “Replace all teachers,” it was a little provocation, but the fact that many teachers can be replaced is already common practice.

I am currently in my third year of an Executive MBA at Harvard. Some of our professors already use “digital twins” — a 3D replica of the professor provided to us so we can ask questions without overloading professors. It is a win-win system.

There are already studies showing that when a person communicates with a new version of ChatGPT, they feel more empathy than when communicating with most doctors. So I do not believe we will form an introverted generation — the specifics of interactions between people are always changing.

Four key points for the next 5–10 years

1. There will be a lot of resistance from teaching staff, because it is a social issue — “who gets paid?”, “who gets fired?”. Technologically it works; only socio-political issues remain.
2. Ukraine is not in a vacuum. The state competes with other countries for the quality of human capital. If AI improves human capital more effectively than old-school methodologies, resistance leads to lower competitiveness.
3. It is necessary to understand existing business processes in the world and integrate technologies into them so that it makes sense.
4. Integration raises the question of preventing students from simply using ChatGPT to generate homework without improving their skills. Copy-pasting without thinking is degradation and violates academic integrity. Such projects need a clear understanding of “how to do this” processually.

Best regards,
Vitaliy Goncharuk
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